Portable heaters have been growing in popularity in recent years. Making these devices easily mobile is useful for their versatility. Many portable heaters must be physically lifted and carried in order to be mobile. The lift and carry requirement is not very desirable when the heaters are often moved from place to place.
Placing wheels on portable heaters has been done over the years. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,870,253 to De'Longhi and U.S. Pat. No. 6,595,200 to Dai. However, these device like many others requires generally large type wheels be permanently attached to axles underneath the heaters. The permanent type attachments do not allow for removing the wheels when needed. For example, the permanently attached wheels take up more space when the heater unit has to be packaged and shipped.
Even if these wheels were not initially attached to the heater, then the user must spend time to assemble the wheels by using tools such as but not limited to screw drivers, wrenches, and the like. So, later removing the wheels would also be a chore requiring additional manpower and time. Additionally, these large type wheels can be cumbersome to store. Additionally, these devices have many loose parts that can become lost overtime.
Attempts have been made to use smaller wheels underneath the portable heaters. See for example, U.S. Published Patent Application 2004/0245417 to De'Longhi, which describes a support for a radiator. Although these wheels are generally smaller than those referenced in the other devices above, these wheel are not intended to be removed from beneath the heater. Instead these wheels fold up underneath the heater, and still take up added space when the heater is to be shipped and stored. Additionally, the folding action can break or jam along one of the hinges. If only one hinge breaks or jams, the entire heater is no longer rollable over a ground surface.
Still furthermore, all of the prior art devices listed above require their wheels be fixed along side each of the heater units, which means they are not pivotable. These fixed wheel orientations do not allow for the heaters to be easily turned as they are being rolled.
Thus, the need exists for solutions to the above problems with the prior art.